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Valve Locking Out Gamers Who Buy Orange Box Internationally
Via Opposable Thumbs, a post on the Consumerist site notes that some enterprising gamers who bought the Orange Box in a territory different than the one they lived (to save a few bucks) have now found themselves unable to play the game. "One user, Todd, explains that thousands of crafty North American gamers looking for a deal have 'bought the product (and hence, the serial numbers) at well known international game stores' at a significant markdown. Activation of the purchased titles went off without a hitch. However, Valve apparently has taken issue with the region-specificity of some international versions and has begun locking out accounts of those living in North America, but owning international serial numbers with the message that the purchased game is in the 'incorrect territory.'" Worse, folks who tried to 'make it right' by buying a local copy have found they're basically SOL. I've been a big fan of the Steam concept since it launched, but this is the sort of thing you need to communicate to your users before you sting them.
After digging around on the Steam forums a bit, I'd like to clear up some misconceptions that people seem to be getting.
1) Orange Box purchased through Steam (online) is NOT REGION LOCKED IN ANY WAY.
2) Codes from retail boxes in America, the EU and most other places are NOT REGION LOCKED.
3) Codes from Thailand and Russia ARE REGION LOCKED. This is done because Steam games are sold in those countries at a tiny fraction of the US retail cost. The boxes are marked (in the appropriate language) that they keys will not work in other countries.
In other words, people are getting "burned" because they bought keys from companies that buy the Thai/Russian retail boxes, opens them up, and sell you the codes for several times what they paid, which is still cheaper than the rest of the world pays. They companies know that the keys don't work anywhere else, so the people are getting basically scammed by the companies selling them keys, not Valve.
They're not military servicemen living overseas or families on vacation in Europe, they're cheapasses who fall for a scam because they're too eager to get a "great deal".
Karma: Contrapositive
I don't follow your argument. If you want an overclocking, nuclear-powered, death dealing gamer rig, that doesn't mean you still can't be frugal. Frugal is not the same thing as being cheap. If a person wants the functionality of a $1000 video card, has the means to procure it, but it aware they can do it for less money, they usually will. If a game is $50 in their local market and $30 online overseas, why is it so terrible of them to do that?
You as the end consumer are NOT bound by agreements between other people. The place where you bought it from may have sold something to you in contravention of their contracts with THEIR partners, but that's not your problem... or it SHOULDN'T be your problem... and if law and/or reality contradict that, then the law and/or reality is in error and needs fixing.
You can contact support and they can take the unwanted version out of your account. They can also give you refunds if you bought a wrong version. The German version of TF2 is censored; the blood is removed and the gibs (chucks of body parts flying around when people get blown up) have been replaced with rubber ducks, unicycles, springs, gears, and hamburgers. People in Germany who imported the US version to try to play the uncensored version found that it wouldn't work. If they contacted support they got a refund and a reminder: "Please note in the future that Steam purchases, per the Steam Subscriber Agreement, are not refundable - this refund was issued as a one-time customer service gesture."
What? Not only will the game cube not play any game purchased outside your "region", Nintendo was the first video game manufacturer to include such technology. Games purchased in one of the four regions (Asia, North America, Europe and Oceania, China) can't be used outside that region. Of course, you know this in advance (or should, at least) and they can't remotely kill your game, so it's better than Steam, but not by much...
'Cept games take a lot of money to produce, beyond the cost of minting CDs. If it costs X number of dollars to develop a game, they have to sell X / ( ( consumer price of copy ) - ( cost of manufacture ) ) to break even. They then have to make enough of a profit to continue turning out games in the future, and satisfy investors (assuming it's a public company).